The city's privacy watchdog is joining its counterparts around the world to oppose Google's new privacy policy, which comes into effect today.
The search engine giant announced in January that more than 60 privacy policies for its different services would be combined into one main policy. That would mean, for example, that data gleaned from a Gmail account would be linked to the user's account on the video-sharing service YouTube or their Android smartphone.
Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang Yam-wang said the move was intended to help Google target its advertising by understanding users' web-browsing habits. But he, along with counterparts elsewhere in Asia, in the European Union and in the United States, believes users should have a choice of whether their data was shared.
'There is no problem them enhancing the efficiency of their advertising service, but they also need to maintain the autonomy of individual customers' he said. 'For example, if I do not want to combine all my data in your services, is there any convenient means for me to opt out?'
When users log in to Google services they are given the option of either accepting the new privacy policy or simply not using the services. Chiang said it was impossible to avoid Google's services these days as they were ubiquitous.
The devil was in the detail, Chiang said, pointing out that the new privacy policy terms did not include a clause, offered by some Google services, under which users' data would be deleted within 60 days.
Chiang said he had written to Google asking it to clarify the change and to give users the option of not sharing their data.